Archive for the 'writing life' Category
January 23rd 2012
The Skill List Project: Writing Descriptive Passages
This is another post in The Skill List Project: an attempt to list all the skills involved in writing and selling fiction, particularly science fiction and fantasy. As promised last time, we’re going to look at writing description, one of the most important skills in prose fiction. When you think about it, prose fiction primarily [...]
December 23rd 2011
A Writer’s Letter To Santa
Dear Santa: First of all, I want to assure you that I have been very good this year. Really. I’ve done A LOT of writing; I’ve put my butt in my chair just about every day. (My butt’s actually a little flat and wide at this point for all the writing I’ve done. But that’s [...]
November 23rd 2011
What Are Your Favorite Re-Readable Books?
The Thanksgiving holiday is looming, and I’m actually traveling right now, so I’m going to keep this fairly brief, and I probably won’t be able to respond to comments due to lack of internet access. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t continue this discussion amongst yourselves. I’m doing some graduate student mentoring at a [...]
August 23rd 2011
A Year To Remember
When I first started writing professionally, I had a vision of what my career path would look like. I understood, from all that I had been told by people wiser and more experienced than I, that success wouldn’t come easily, and that the first several years of my career would be a struggle. But I [...]
August 15th 2011
Do You Want to Be a Writer, or Do You Want to Write?
There is a difference. The first is an ambition, the latter a disease. In the long run, it doesn’t much matter what your motivation is. Motivation is motivation; it’s just a matter of how strong it is. People who want to be writers are generally charmed by the idea of being famous, or working from [...]
July 15th 2011
Does Heinlein Matter?
He used to. He used to be the be-all and end-all of ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s SF. This despite the fact that most critics think his later output is far inferior to his Golden Age writing and juveniles. Even during the rise (and fall) of the New Wave, Heinlein’s star, no matter how scorned, never [...]
June 23rd 2011
Finishing a Puzzle
My apologies for this post going up late. I am in the throes of finishing a book, which is always a good place to be, but which always leaves me tunnel-visioned and addle-brained. So I’m late with the post and I have absolutely nothing to say. And I feel badly about that. Finishing a book [...]
June 21st 2011
The Skill List Project: Avoiding Viewpoint Mistakes
This is another post in The Skill List Project: an attempt to list all the skills involved in writing and selling fiction, particularly science fiction and fantasy. Last time around, we talked about Viewpoint Selectivity. This time, we’ll dig into viewpoint again because I want to talk about something that really makes beginners look amateurish: [...]
June 20th 2011
The Book is Dead, Long Live the Book!
I have a confession to make. I’m not proud of it, but here it is: I don’t buy books anymore. Don’t get me wrong. I love books. I love the feel and smell of the paper. I love the pretty pictures on the covers. I love the sight of all my books lining the walls [...]
May 23rd 2011
Google and Piracy: One Author’s Perspective
On Friday, a friend brought to my attention a blog post that was written by Richard Curtis, a big-name agent in the SF/fantasy genre. Curtis’s post was a response to an announcement earlier in the week by Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt. Essentially, Schmidt said that Google would not make any effort to stop its [...]
Author Information
James Alan Gardner
James Alan Gardner got his M.Math from the University of Waterloo with a thesis on black holes...and then he immediately started writing science fiction instead. He's been a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula awards, and has won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award as well as the Aurora award (twice). He's published seven novels (beginning with "Expendable"), plus a short story collection and (for street cred) a Lara Croft book. He cares deeply about words and sentences, and is working his way up to paragraphs. Visit site.
David B. Coe
David B. Coe is the author of eleven fantasy novels, including the books of the LonTobyn Chronicle, Winds of the Forelands, and Blood of the Southlands. He has also written the novelization for the Ridley Scott production of ROBIN HOOD, starring Russell Crowe, that is due out in May 2010. In 1999 he received the Crawford Fantasy Award, given annually by the IAFA to the best new author in fantasy. He has a Ph.D. in United States environmental history and lives on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with his wife and daughters. Visit site.
David B. Coe
David B. Coe is the author of eleven fantasy novels, including the books of the LonTobyn Chronicle, Winds of the Forelands, and Blood of the Southlands. He has also written the novelization for the Ridley Scott production of ROBIN HOOD, starring Russell Crowe, that is due out in May 2010. In 1999 he received the Crawford Fantasy Award, given annually by the IAFA to the best new author in fantasy. He has a Ph.D. in United States environmental history and lives on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with his wife and daughters. Visit site.
David B. Coe
David B. Coe is the author of eleven fantasy novels, including the books of the LonTobyn Chronicle, Winds of the Forelands, and Blood of the Southlands. He has also written the novelization for the Ridley Scott production of ROBIN HOOD, starring Russell Crowe, that is due out in May 2010. In 1999 he received the Crawford Fantasy Award, given annually by the IAFA to the best new author in fantasy. He has a Ph.D. in United States environmental history and lives on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with his wife and daughters. Visit site.
S.C. Butler
Butler is the author of The Stoneways Trilogy from Tor Books: Reiffen's Choice, Queen Ferris, and The Magician's Daughter. Find out what Reiffen does with magic, and what magic does with him... Visit site.
S.C. Butler
Butler is the author of The Stoneways Trilogy from Tor Books: Reiffen's Choice, Queen Ferris, and The Magician's Daughter. Find out what Reiffen does with magic, and what magic does with him... Visit site.
David B. Coe
David B. Coe is the author of eleven fantasy novels, including the books of the LonTobyn Chronicle, Winds of the Forelands, and Blood of the Southlands. He has also written the novelization for the Ridley Scott production of ROBIN HOOD, starring Russell Crowe, that is due out in May 2010. In 1999 he received the Crawford Fantasy Award, given annually by the IAFA to the best new author in fantasy. He has a Ph.D. in United States environmental history and lives on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with his wife and daughters. Visit site.
James Alan Gardner
James Alan Gardner got his M.Math from the University of Waterloo with a thesis on black holes...and then he immediately started writing science fiction instead. He's been a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula awards, and has won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award as well as the Aurora award (twice). He's published seven novels (beginning with "Expendable"), plus a short story collection and (for street cred) a Lara Croft book. He cares deeply about words and sentences, and is working his way up to paragraphs. Visit site.
Chris Moriarty
Chris Moriarty has been making a living writing science fiction and fantasy for over a decade. Chris's books include SPIN STATE, SPIN CONTROL (winner of the 2007 Philip K. Dick Award), and THE INQUISITOR'S APPRENTICE. Chris also has a regular review column with the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Visit site.
David B. Coe
David B. Coe is the author of eleven fantasy novels, including the books of the LonTobyn Chronicle, Winds of the Forelands, and Blood of the Southlands. He has also written the novelization for the Ridley Scott production of ROBIN HOOD, starring Russell Crowe, that is due out in May 2010. In 1999 he received the Crawford Fantasy Award, given annually by the IAFA to the best new author in fantasy. He has a Ph.D. in United States environmental history and lives on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with his wife and daughters. Visit site.
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